Rising Stars

12/27/2012

For days I’ve hugged my children and shuddered for those
parents. I’ve mourned, fretted, and raged online, in between the buying and the
wrapping, the list-making and card-signing. I’ve cried in line waiting for my
safe child to be released from his safe elementary school and I’ve cried
watching my safe children playing with their Christmas toys. Safe.

Between That and This, I’ve had more than enough of the
world’s What the Fuckery for a lifetime. I need distractions. I need comic
books.

I have a giant teetering pile waiting for my attention. The
pile makes me smile. I haven’t actually cracked open any of the books in the
pile for the aforementioned choring around, but just looking at their shiny
covers gives me a happy zap.

Pop art as electroshock therapy. Comic book store as
pharmacy. Yippee zip zoodle, just look at what’s in store. (Store, get it? My
comic book store, the phrase “what’s in store?” I am SO en fuego tonight. It
must be the beer. Hoponius Union.)

Check out my list (quoted descriptions lifted from book
jackets). Marvel at the breadth of subject matter, then away to your local
comic book store, which you should be supporting anyway. Santa Belated yourself
with a couple of books for late tomorrow night, when the last cup of nog needs
kicking and the kids have finally passed out from days of mad, merry frenzy.

“When two soldiers from opposite sides of a
never-ending galactic war fall in love, they risk everything to bring a fragile
new life into a dangerous old world.”

Love and Capes, Thomas Zahler: Rene and I chatted with Zahler at NY
Comic Con. Once you hear a comic book creator enthusiastically talk up his
creation, you’re compelled by a heady mix of manners and Comic Con binge-ery to
buy.

“Abby and Mark are a typical couple. At least, that’s what Abby thinks.
Unbeknownst to her, her boyfriend is not just an accountant, but also the
super-powered crime fighter, the Crusader. And tonight, Mark’s going to let her
in on the secret.”

Birds of Prey, DC Comics, Gail Simone & Ed Benes & Adriana Melo & Alvin Lee: I love writer Gail Simone. Who doesn’t? Possibly the
new editor of Batgirl: Simone was been bumped from the book early this month.

WHA? I was bothered
and bewildered, because Batgirl for me is all about the voice - witty, self-effacing, crazy smart. I couldn't imagine
the voice would soar without Simone.

Christmas came early to Simonians when she was reinstated on the book a few days before Christmas. Woohoo!

Several folks have advised me to read Simone’s run on Birds
of Prey, a Gotham-set/Bat-verse series featuring a slew of avian female
superheroes, among them Black Canary, Huntress, Lady Blackhawk, Dove and Oracle.

(Oracle used to be Batgirl, before the Joker paralyzed Batgirl, putting her
into a wheelchair, from where she became an intelligence/technology/information
guru.)

My lub-a-dub Rich bought me two of the books for my birthday last month.

Fun trivia: Marceline is released with several covers per issue, each paying tribute to a real-world album cover. The #5 to the right riffs on No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom."

Locke & Key, IDW Publishing, Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez: I had never heard of Locke & Key when a personable employee of Manhattan’s awesome Midtown Comics
recommended it. This guy was not only nice, but honest: He willingly shared
names of a slew of books he didn’t like, including anything featuring a
superhero.

“Locke & Key tells of Keyhouse, an unlikely New England
mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them
… and home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it
forces open the most terrible door of them all.”

For years I snobbed myself away from anything reeking of
otherworlds, but once Buffy opened my eyes to the magic of alternate
realities, I was hooked. This book promises yet another universe to fall into.
(You should never end a sentence with “into” but “another universe in which to
fall” sounds clunky. I don’t like clunks with my beer. Just peanuts. Sometimes
smokehouse almonds. If I'm lucky, a hunk of Red Dragon.)

(Verbal digression from "Graphic Distraction": Sometimes I call
Rene Ener. Sometimes Rene calls me Annasus. If we ever write a children’s book,
our pseudonyms will be Ener & Annasus, AKA our orthonyms backwards.
Who ever heard of an orthonym? Not this cotton-headed ninnymuggins, until I
googled pseudonym and there she was: orthonym. Not your dental apparatus. Just
your name.)

I don’t know what Rising Star is about. The cover doesn’t
include blurbies, just a scowling boy, a soft-bellied freakish someone, and a
superhero who appears to be related to Captain America.

"Recruited by the enigmatic Campion Bond, under orders from the mysterious 'M,' these six adventurers are pressed into service by their empire in its time of need. Now they must face the nefarious Doctor and his vile play for world domination. But things are not entirely as they seem; other factors, cryptic and corpuscular, are also at play. A remarkable drama ensues."